City red tape threatens $30-million hotel

City hall red tape is threatening to derail developer Harry Stinson’s plan for a multimillion-dollar condo hotel in the downtown.

Stinson was “shocked” to discover he is expected to move the hotel at Main and John streets back from the sidewalk by an additional 2.4 metres in case Main needs to be widened in the future.

He says that would mean slicing off some 40 metres of crucial frontage from the 15-storey building, which would kill the estimated $30-million Hamilton Grand project.

Under the city’s Official Plan, the road allowance is required when properties within designated areas come on the market and there’s a proposed change in use.

Stinson’s planned hotel/condo is on the site of a former gas station which he bought from Shell Canada.

Both sides are now striving to find a compromise which will likely be presented to the new city council for approval early in the New Year.

Glen Norton, senior development consultant with Hamilton’s downtown renewal office, is confident a solution will be found.

“As a city, we want Harry’s project to go ahead — bar none,” Norton said. ‘But we still have to live within the Official Plan … and if you’re going to vary from it, you better have a good reason.”

In this case, the good reason is keeping an important project alive at the expense of a hypothetical road widening that will probably never happen given all the established buildings in the area.

Stinson is also confident they will resolve the “absurd” and “surreal” predicament.

To accommodate the 2.4-metre setback, he’s proposed creating a colonnaded walkway at the lower levels of the hotel, with the upper floors jutting out over it.

Both Stinson and the city tried to keep the issue low key because they didn’t want to scare away potential investors. Stinson says he’s sold about 130 condo units out of the more than 200 expected to be up and running when the project is completed in 2012.

The conflict came to light, however, during the mayoral debates when downtown Councillor Bob Bratina, now mayor-elect, obliquely referred to it as an example of bureaucratic red tape.

Stinson says he brought the roadblock to the attention of Norton and Bratina after being “blindsided” by Gary Moore, director of engineering services, during a routine meeting with city staff.

“It was a pretty nasty meeting.” Stinson said. “We questioned the logic of (the setback) considering that Main Street has been built up for about 100 years, but they weren’t interested in logic.”

Moore acknowledges that he and Stinson butted heads but he suggests an experienced developer like Stinson should have known the rules.

“A surprise to him is very surprising to me,” Moore said. “The rule is you take the widening; that’s the starting point. Whether we need it or not, normally we don’t get into that because you don’t want to limit yourself or future generations.”

Certainly Stinson, once dubbed Toronto’s visionary condo king, is experienced enough to know that when one door closes at City Hall, you need to start knocking on others.

That’s when both sides began searching for creative solutions.

Fortunately, it looks as if pragmatism will overrule by-the-book bureaucracy. After all, developers aren’t exactly lining up to buy and build on the site of an abandoned gas station in the core.

Still, the wrangle isn’t entirely the city’ fault. Rules are in place; Stinson should have known about them.

The fact is, he’s dealing with a very tight site and every metre is critical to him. That’s why he plans to build right to the lot line, right to the edge of the existing sidewalk.

Since that doesn’t provide much space for pedestrian traffic, bus stops, or delivery vehicles, a colonnade may even be a blessing in disguise.